The first three columns are the total amounts raised by the November candidate in the given district for the given year. Some years there were no candidates, and some years the candidate reported raising no money. The fourth column is the sum of the first three. Note that with the exception of CD23 in 2014, these are all totals raised by challengers to Republican incumbents.

The numbers speak for themselves. With five months still go so, Democratic Congressional challengers have raised more so far this cycle than the challengers in the previous three cycles combined. The combined amount raised this year is three times what was raised in 2012, four times what was raised in 2014, and five times what was raised in 2016. Candidates this year outraised the three-year total in their districts everywhere except CDs 14 (due to Nick Lampson’s candidacy in 2012), 27 (due to two cycles’ worth of decent funding), and 23, the one true swing district where the big money is always raised.

It’s been said many times and I’ll say it again: We’ve never seen anything like this before. The reasons for it are well-explored, and the conditions that have given rise to it are (I fervently hope) singular, but it all happened. Is this a unicorn that we’ll never see again, or will it be the first step towards something different, more like this year even if not quite as much? I’d say that depends to some extent on how successful this year ends up being, and how committed everyone is to making this be more than a one-time thing. It’s a good start, but there is a whole lot more that can still be done.

The Trump administration recently announced big cuts to a program that helps people sign up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Ahead of open enrollment, which starts later this year, the money Texas gets to hire navigators – people who help residents find insurance plans – is getting slashed 86 percent. For the enrollment period ending in January, Texas groups will be able to apply for only up to $1.25 million in federal funds.

“That’s a drop in the bucket,” says Stacey Pogue, a senior policy analyst with the Center for Public Policy Priorities. “That is a tiny amount. It would not go very far when you’re talking about more than 4 million uninsured Texans.”

Pogue says it’s also a small number compared to how much the state has been given in years prior. According to data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Texas was allotted $9.2 million in navigator grants during the 2016-17 enrollment period.

[…]

Pogue says these cuts are part of the Trump administration’s larger effort to weaken the health care law.

She says this particular cut, though, hurts people who are vulnerable and live in hard-to-reach areas. Cities like Austin, which have groups like Foundation Communities, won’t feel the cuts as much as rural parts of the state.

In other words, people in the parts of the state that voted the most heavily for Trump. It’s like tariffs for sick people. I mean look, this is and has been the playbook from the beginning. The only way forward is to get back to electing candidates who want people to be able to access health care. Until then, I feel like we need a video, to clear the palate a bit:

Not sure what prompted them to pay attention to this particular race, but Lisa Seger is a good subject for such a profile.

Lisa Seger

In November, Seger will become the first Democratic candidate to challenge Republican Cecil Bell of Magnolia for his seat as the District 3 Representative in the Texas Legislature since the boundaries were redrawn in 2010. The only other challenger the three-term incumbent has faced was B. Larry Parr, a Libertarian who lost 91 percent of the vote to Bell in 2014.

Seger knows her run is a long shot, but she felt she didn’t have a choice.

Women like Seger have never known equal representation, at the state or national level. Texas has sent just seven women to the House of Representatives, where 19.3 percent of lawmakers are women. Only one woman in Texas’ history has represented the state in the Senate, where 23 percent of lawmakers are women. As a state, Texas is reflective of these trends. Women currently hold 37 seats, or 20.4 percent, in the state Legislature.

Seger joins the fray amid a wave of female candidates running for office across the country. Of the 344 women running nationwide for a seat as a Democrat or Republican in Congress, 20 are from Texas. Meanwhile, 79 women, including Seger, are running as a Democrat or Republican for a seat in the Texas State Legislature.

Even if all of those women are elected, there are still not enough female candidates to correct the gender imbalance in Congress. Still, this election cycle could result in an unprecedented number of women in office.

For Seger, the decision to run was simple. “I didn’t have anyone to vote for. There were no people running that stood for the things I stood for,” she explains.

Running on what she describes as a civil rights campaign, the farmer is driven by the same sense of duty that motivated her to make organic dairy products.“I’m one of those people that if nobody is doing it and I think it needs to be done, I’m just going to do it. That was about sustainably and ethically raising protein” says Seger, but also about running for office.

[…]

Seger’s policy priorities make her a blue needle in a red haystack. The likelihood that the right-leaning constituency of HD-3 share Seger’s liberal views is slim, and her chances of winning the election reflect that.

“It’s impossible for a Democrat to win HD-3,” says Mark Jones, leader of the Texas Politics Program at the Baker Institute and a Kinder Fellow. “It’s like playing football where the other team starts with five touchdowns.”

But the run isn’t for nothing. “This is exactly what the Democratic Party needs if it’s going to return to the majority status,”says Jones. A Democratic candidate gives voters an alternative and political analysts say that’s better than leaving a race uncontested.

Of the 150 state House races in Texas, 18 are without a Democratic challenger, according to filing reports from the Secretary of State’s Office. Seger’s name may be a drop in the well, but it’s more advantageous for the party than leaving voters to write in their favorite liberal cartoon. “You have to start somewhere,” says Jones.

Most Democrats will struggle in Texas, but their name on the ballot can shore up votes in the closely watched race for U.S. Senate. Jones explains: “If [Seger] is able to convince 5 percent more of HD-3 residents to vote Democratic, that’s not going to lead her to defeat Cecil Bell but that’s going to help Beto O’Rourke close the gap with Ted Cruz.”

We’ve discussed this before, and I agree with Mark Jones’ analysis. Having decent candidates up and down the ballot is surely better than not having them. There is a counter-argument to running candidates in districts that are not particularly competitive, and that’s that it makes the other guys run real campaigns instead of coasting, which can drive up their turnout in a way that’s a net negative for your side. In that scenario, and to continue the Jones argument, having Lisa Seger on the ballot just serves to bring out more Ted Cruz voters. I don’t buy it, but even if there is some short-term cost, the fact remains that people need reasons to vote, and having candidates they can meet and make connections with is a good way to give them a reason. You can’t beat something with nothing, but if you start with some good somethings like Lisa Seger, you can at least compete.